the human province

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm not sure why, but overnight, my internet connection stopped allowing me to connect to blogspot/blogger sites. I can connect from friends' houses and from work, but I can't seem to figure out why I can’t connect from home. This is decidedly inconvenient for updating my blog, which I haven't been so good about lately anyway. So I've decided to change my host from blogspot to wordpress, which means that I won't be updating this site anymore. I think I was able to import all the old posts and comments without a hitch, but if anyone notices any problems with anything, please let me know.

Otherwise, I've taken advantage of the move to change the layout, which has always been pretty bare bones due to my limited skills in web design.

So please come over to the new site and update your bookmarks. Ahlan wa sahlan.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jeffrey Goldberg has a dishonest account of Tom Segev's review of a book on Haj Amin al-Husseini up. He makes it sound like Segev is only down on the book because it emphasizes Arab extremism, whereas his problems with the book are much more substantial:

The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him.

Then Goldberg makes it sound like Segev is comparing Jewish extremism in mandate Palestine with Husseini's support of Nazi Germany:

Segev compares the Mufti's behavior to that of Yitzhak Shamir, the former prime minister of Israel who was once a terrorist with the Stern Gang, and he criticizes the authors for neglecting to mention Jewish extremism in the time of the Mufti. I'm not sure why a book about pro-Nazi sympathies among certain Arabs need include this...

Actually, what Segev does is remind us, as we can read in his excellent book The Seventh Million that Husseini was not the only anti-British nationalist to make overtures to Nazi Germany for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of British imperialism:

The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode.

So while it's true that a book on Arabs seeking German support against the British and the Jewish colonialism needn't mention the terrorism of the Irgun or the Stern Gang, it seems dishonest not to include the fact that some of Husseini's local Jewish enemies also sought the support of Nazi Germany.

But that's the whole problem here. The importance accorded to Husseini is meant to conflate anti-Zionism and Arabs with anti-Semitism and Nazis. During World War II, there were many subjects of British imperialism from Ireland to Egypt and beyond who saw the time as ripe to back another European power, not because they were Nazis or anti-Semites, but because they were anti-British and saw Germany as means to the end of breaking British rule over their lands.

We've seen politically expedient but strange bedfellows time and time again, like how many exiled Iraqis supported an American invasion -- not because they were particularly pro-American, but rather because they were anti-Saddam. To argue that the the two are necessarily the same is either obtuse or dishonest.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Last night I saw a collection of Israeli and Palestinian short films about Jerusalem, one of which (made by an Israeli) took a look at the Museum on the Seam. The museum describes itself like this:

The Museum is committed to examining the social reality within our regional conflict, to advancing dialogue in the face of discord and to encouraging social responsibility that is based on what we all have in common rather than what keeps us apart.

And it describes its location like this:

The Museum is situated in a building constructed in 1932 by the Arab-Christian architect, Anton Baramki.

While Jerusalem was divided (1948-1967), the building served as a military outpost (the Turjeman Post) which stood on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city.

The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 with the generous support of the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation and by the initiative of the designer and curator of the Museum, Raphie Etgar.

What it fails to mention is that Baramki and his family lived in the house until they were displaced during the war in 1948 and that ever since 1967 the Baramki family has tried in vain to reclaim their house. The museum has refused to give them their property back, relying on the Israeli law of "absentee" landowners that has allowed the Jewish state to confiscate Palestinian land.

Friday, August 29, 2008

I've only scratched the surface, but considering how much Orwell talks about the weather and crops, I feel somehow a little less pathetic for not being able to talk for five minutes without making a comment on the hot and sticky weather that greeted me upon my return from Africa back to Beirut. Who'da thunk I'd be pining for Congolese weather? It's not much, but I suppose Goma's got at least one thing going for it this time of year.

For reasons I won't go into, I was at the American embassy a couple of times earlier this week. Draconian security measures notwithstanding (you're not allowed to bring a phone or bag onto the premises), the place seemed more Lebanese than American, with Lebanese security guards, Lebanese employees and Lebanese-Americans queued up in the consular section.

Another touch was a world map in the consular section. It is a map with political boundaries, and while I was in the consular waiting room, I took a look at it while trying to recover from the disgusting humidity that all of Beirut's been suffering from this summer. The map is in Arabic, and like most maps in the region, Israel is nowhere to be found. Instead, the map shows Palestine. This wouldn't be surprising, except that it's in the American embassy.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I've been really, really terrible about keeping the site updated. And for that I apologize. Before, I could blame the state of African telecommunications, but since I'm back home where I have the internet at home and work, I've got no such excuses.

While I was away, I read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow on the recommendation of a friend of mine. It was really wonderful, a mixture of Rushdie and Gunther Grass, but à l'africaine. Then, to keep with the theme of African dictatorships and as suggested by another friend, I read Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savanna, which is also a great read. There are so many passages that stood out on the page, but this is one of my favorites:

[A] genuine artist, no matter what he says he believes, must feel in his blood the ultimate enmity between art and orthodoxy.

Those who would see no blot of villainy in the beloved oppressed nor grant the faintest glimmer of humanity to the the hated oppressor are partisans, patriots and party-liners. In the grand finale of things there will be a mansion also for them where they will be received and lodged in comfort by the single-minded demigods of their devotion.

My trip was incredibly interesting. I traveled from Kenya to Zanzibar to Tanzania proper to Rwanda and Congo then through Uganda back to Kenya before leaving. It was tiresome to be on the move so much, so I was happy to come home to Beirut.

That being said, given our excruciatingly humid heat here, I miss the cool evenings of East and Central Africa. I also miss the smell of smoke that always seemed to fill the night sky. The latter, by the way, is completely different in the southern hemisphere. The stars are much more numerous and fill constellations that I'd never before seen. It's amazing to think that something so fundamental to our lives as the sky can change upon crossing an imaginary line in the African dirt.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was expecting a leisurely train ride through the inland to Lake Victoria from Dar-es-Salaam. That's not at all what I got. The train was scheduled to leave Dar-es-Salaam at 5 on Tuesday evening, and I was pleasantly surprised when we left on time. The Tanzanian scenery was beautiful and the couchette not that uncomfortable.

I awoke to a couple of sudden jolts, and then we stopped for a while. Finally, we started back up again and I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up was a Tanzanian cabin mate who decided that 1 am would be the perfect time to listen to his telephone's radio at full blast, despite the fact that there were five people trying to sleep in the same tiny cabin.

I finally fell back asleep and then woke up in the early light of the morning to see a train platform. We must be in Dodoma, I thought, and then went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to see that we hadn't moved, so I decided to get out and see what the problem was. I asked where we were, to which someone responded: Dar-es-Salaam. Thinking that he’d misunderstood my question, I mimed that yes, of course, we'd left Dar-es-Salaam, but where were we now? He shrugged and repeated: Dar-es-Salaam.

It was only then that I recognized the buildings around us. I'd just spent 14 hours to end up in the exact same place I'd left. After some investigation, it seems that the jolts had been two of the train cars being derailed, but fortunately no one was hurt. We were told that the tracks would be repaired and that we were expected to leave again at 5 in the evening, but that we should stay close to the train anyway, just in case. So I spent the day lounging in the sun watching as an African village sprung up on the train platform.

Men lounged and ate oranges, while women washed clothes and children. Wet laundry soon adorned the rusty tracks and open train windows. This, I assume, is how shantytowns are born. To my surprise, mothers led their children to defecate mere feet away from the water spigots, which left human shit in disconcerting proximity to drying laundry and dishes. It also made the whole place smell like a public toilet. All in all, I was surprised by the fact that no one seemed particularly upset about the inconvenience of the situation. Everyone was taking it in stride.

After being told that I couldn't get my money back for the train ticket, I left our new village for some fresh air and Indian food, passing an enormous line of people waiting to get a two-dollar food allowance from the rail company. By the time I got back, it was nearly time to leave. Or so I thought. The departure time of 5 pm came and went without so much as a train whistle. We were then told that we’d be leaving at 9, so I settled in to read with the last of the sunlight. I fell asleep in my couchette and only woke up at around 9:30 to loud music and a crowd of people obviously upset about something.

It seems that they were mad, and understandably so, about not getting a refund for their ticket. Every once in a while, the crowd's singing and chanting would take on a nasty edge, and rocks and Swahili curses would be hurled. After a bit of this and three pops that sounded like firecrackers and which were explained to me to be local bombs (made by the police or the crowd, I couldn't tell), I decided that it is decidedly unwise to be different in a crowd of angry people who want their money back. And especially unwise when that difference, in my case that of skin color, is seen mainly as a financial difference. I was worried that the leap from "give us our money back" to let's take the mzungu's money" could be quick and unforgiving. So I left. And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to Kigali by tomorrow.

I left Dar-es-Salaam last night and thought I was well on my way to Lake Victoria, but then I fell asleep and woke up this morning to find myself in.... Dar-es-Salaam. It seems that part of our train derailed last night (which must have been the couple of jolts I felt), so we turned around and came back. Shortly after arriving, the passengers set-up a makeshift village on tracks, with women washing clothes and children while the men mostly sat around chatting and eating oranges.

I looked into a plane ticket to Kigali from Dar, but it is an astounding $440, so it looks like I will be giving the train another try this evening. They said that the tracks are being repaired, but I don't know how much I trust that. In either case, by the time I'd figured out what was going on, it was too late to catch a bus to Mwanza, and I still haven't heard back from Rwandair, so it looks like I'll be on the train.

Otherwise, Mwanza was the film featured in the documentary film Darwin's Nightmare about the Perch Nile in Lake Victoria. It was poorly received here, and even non-Tanzanian friend who live here can't stand it. Personally, I really liked the film when I saw it, but I'd never been to Tanzania before, so if I finally make it to Mwanza, I suppose I'll be able to see if the film was fair or not.

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm not sure why, but overnight, my internet connection stopped allowing me to connect to blogspot/blogger sites. I can connect from friends' houses and from work, but I can't seem to figure out why I can’t connect from home. This is decidedly inconvenient for updating my blog, which I haven't been so good about lately anyway. So I've decided to change my host from blogspot to wordpress, which means that I won't be updating this site anymore. I think I was able to import all the old posts and comments without a hitch, but if anyone notices any problems with anything, please let me know.

Otherwise, I've taken advantage of the move to change the layout, which has always been pretty bare bones due to my limited skills in web design.

So please come over to the new site and update your bookmarks. Ahlan wa sahlan.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jeffrey Goldberg has a dishonest account of Tom Segev's review of a book on Haj Amin al-Husseini up. He makes it sound like Segev is only down on the book because it emphasizes Arab extremism, whereas his problems with the book are much more substantial:

The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him.

Then Goldberg makes it sound like Segev is comparing Jewish extremism in mandate Palestine with Husseini's support of Nazi Germany:

Segev compares the Mufti's behavior to that of Yitzhak Shamir, the former prime minister of Israel who was once a terrorist with the Stern Gang, and he criticizes the authors for neglecting to mention Jewish extremism in the time of the Mufti. I'm not sure why a book about pro-Nazi sympathies among certain Arabs need include this...

Actually, what Segev does is remind us, as we can read in his excellent book The Seventh Million that Husseini was not the only anti-British nationalist to make overtures to Nazi Germany for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of British imperialism:

The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode.

So while it's true that a book on Arabs seeking German support against the British and the Jewish colonialism needn't mention the terrorism of the Irgun or the Stern Gang, it seems dishonest not to include the fact that some of Husseini's local Jewish enemies also sought the support of Nazi Germany.

But that's the whole problem here. The importance accorded to Husseini is meant to conflate anti-Zionism and Arabs with anti-Semitism and Nazis. During World War II, there were many subjects of British imperialism from Ireland to Egypt and beyond who saw the time as ripe to back another European power, not because they were Nazis or anti-Semites, but because they were anti-British and saw Germany as means to the end of breaking British rule over their lands.

We've seen politically expedient but strange bedfellows time and time again, like how many exiled Iraqis supported an American invasion -- not because they were particularly pro-American, but rather because they were anti-Saddam. To argue that the the two are necessarily the same is either obtuse or dishonest.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Last night I saw a collection of Israeli and Palestinian short films about Jerusalem, one of which (made by an Israeli) took a look at the Museum on the Seam. The museum describes itself like this:

The Museum is committed to examining the social reality within our regional conflict, to advancing dialogue in the face of discord and to encouraging social responsibility that is based on what we all have in common rather than what keeps us apart.

And it describes its location like this:

The Museum is situated in a building constructed in 1932 by the Arab-Christian architect, Anton Baramki.

While Jerusalem was divided (1948-1967), the building served as a military outpost (the Turjeman Post) which stood on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city.

The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 with the generous support of the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation and by the initiative of the designer and curator of the Museum, Raphie Etgar.

What it fails to mention is that Baramki and his family lived in the house until they were displaced during the war in 1948 and that ever since 1967 the Baramki family has tried in vain to reclaim their house. The museum has refused to give them their property back, relying on the Israeli law of "absentee" landowners that has allowed the Jewish state to confiscate Palestinian land.

Friday, August 29, 2008

I've only scratched the surface, but considering how much Orwell talks about the weather and crops, I feel somehow a little less pathetic for not being able to talk for five minutes without making a comment on the hot and sticky weather that greeted me upon my return from Africa back to Beirut. Who'da thunk I'd be pining for Congolese weather? It's not much, but I suppose Goma's got at least one thing going for it this time of year.

For reasons I won't go into, I was at the American embassy a couple of times earlier this week. Draconian security measures notwithstanding (you're not allowed to bring a phone or bag onto the premises), the place seemed more Lebanese than American, with Lebanese security guards, Lebanese employees and Lebanese-Americans queued up in the consular section.

Another touch was a world map in the consular section. It is a map with political boundaries, and while I was in the consular waiting room, I took a look at it while trying to recover from the disgusting humidity that all of Beirut's been suffering from this summer. The map is in Arabic, and like most maps in the region, Israel is nowhere to be found. Instead, the map shows Palestine. This wouldn't be surprising, except that it's in the American embassy.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I've been really, really terrible about keeping the site updated. And for that I apologize. Before, I could blame the state of African telecommunications, but since I'm back home where I have the internet at home and work, I've got no such excuses.

While I was away, I read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow on the recommendation of a friend of mine. It was really wonderful, a mixture of Rushdie and Gunther Grass, but à l'africaine. Then, to keep with the theme of African dictatorships and as suggested by another friend, I read Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savanna, which is also a great read. There are so many passages that stood out on the page, but this is one of my favorites:

[A] genuine artist, no matter what he says he believes, must feel in his blood the ultimate enmity between art and orthodoxy.

Those who would see no blot of villainy in the beloved oppressed nor grant the faintest glimmer of humanity to the the hated oppressor are partisans, patriots and party-liners. In the grand finale of things there will be a mansion also for them where they will be received and lodged in comfort by the single-minded demigods of their devotion.

My trip was incredibly interesting. I traveled from Kenya to Zanzibar to Tanzania proper to Rwanda and Congo then through Uganda back to Kenya before leaving. It was tiresome to be on the move so much, so I was happy to come home to Beirut.

That being said, given our excruciatingly humid heat here, I miss the cool evenings of East and Central Africa. I also miss the smell of smoke that always seemed to fill the night sky. The latter, by the way, is completely different in the southern hemisphere. The stars are much more numerous and fill constellations that I'd never before seen. It's amazing to think that something so fundamental to our lives as the sky can change upon crossing an imaginary line in the African dirt.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was expecting a leisurely train ride through the inland to Lake Victoria from Dar-es-Salaam. That's not at all what I got. The train was scheduled to leave Dar-es-Salaam at 5 on Tuesday evening, and I was pleasantly surprised when we left on time. The Tanzanian scenery was beautiful and the couchette not that uncomfortable.

I awoke to a couple of sudden jolts, and then we stopped for a while. Finally, we started back up again and I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up was a Tanzanian cabin mate who decided that 1 am would be the perfect time to listen to his telephone's radio at full blast, despite the fact that there were five people trying to sleep in the same tiny cabin.

I finally fell back asleep and then woke up in the early light of the morning to see a train platform. We must be in Dodoma, I thought, and then went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to see that we hadn't moved, so I decided to get out and see what the problem was. I asked where we were, to which someone responded: Dar-es-Salaam. Thinking that he’d misunderstood my question, I mimed that yes, of course, we'd left Dar-es-Salaam, but where were we now? He shrugged and repeated: Dar-es-Salaam.

It was only then that I recognized the buildings around us. I'd just spent 14 hours to end up in the exact same place I'd left. After some investigation, it seems that the jolts had been two of the train cars being derailed, but fortunately no one was hurt. We were told that the tracks would be repaired and that we were expected to leave again at 5 in the evening, but that we should stay close to the train anyway, just in case. So I spent the day lounging in the sun watching as an African village sprung up on the train platform.

Men lounged and ate oranges, while women washed clothes and children. Wet laundry soon adorned the rusty tracks and open train windows. This, I assume, is how shantytowns are born. To my surprise, mothers led their children to defecate mere feet away from the water spigots, which left human shit in disconcerting proximity to drying laundry and dishes. It also made the whole place smell like a public toilet. All in all, I was surprised by the fact that no one seemed particularly upset about the inconvenience of the situation. Everyone was taking it in stride.

After being told that I couldn't get my money back for the train ticket, I left our new village for some fresh air and Indian food, passing an enormous line of people waiting to get a two-dollar food allowance from the rail company. By the time I got back, it was nearly time to leave. Or so I thought. The departure time of 5 pm came and went without so much as a train whistle. We were then told that we’d be leaving at 9, so I settled in to read with the last of the sunlight. I fell asleep in my couchette and only woke up at around 9:30 to loud music and a crowd of people obviously upset about something.

It seems that they were mad, and understandably so, about not getting a refund for their ticket. Every once in a while, the crowd's singing and chanting would take on a nasty edge, and rocks and Swahili curses would be hurled. After a bit of this and three pops that sounded like firecrackers and which were explained to me to be local bombs (made by the police or the crowd, I couldn't tell), I decided that it is decidedly unwise to be different in a crowd of angry people who want their money back. And especially unwise when that difference, in my case that of skin color, is seen mainly as a financial difference. I was worried that the leap from "give us our money back" to let's take the mzungu's money" could be quick and unforgiving. So I left. And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to Kigali by tomorrow.

I left Dar-es-Salaam last night and thought I was well on my way to Lake Victoria, but then I fell asleep and woke up this morning to find myself in.... Dar-es-Salaam. It seems that part of our train derailed last night (which must have been the couple of jolts I felt), so we turned around and came back. Shortly after arriving, the passengers set-up a makeshift village on tracks, with women washing clothes and children while the men mostly sat around chatting and eating oranges.

I looked into a plane ticket to Kigali from Dar, but it is an astounding $440, so it looks like I will be giving the train another try this evening. They said that the tracks are being repaired, but I don't know how much I trust that. In either case, by the time I'd figured out what was going on, it was too late to catch a bus to Mwanza, and I still haven't heard back from Rwandair, so it looks like I'll be on the train.

Otherwise, Mwanza was the film featured in the documentary film Darwin's Nightmare about the Perch Nile in Lake Victoria. It was poorly received here, and even non-Tanzanian friend who live here can't stand it. Personally, I really liked the film when I saw it, but I'd never been to Tanzania before, so if I finally make it to Mwanza, I suppose I'll be able to see if the film was fair or not.

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm not sure why, but overnight, my internet connection stopped allowing me to connect to blogspot/blogger sites. I can connect from friends' houses and from work, but I can't seem to figure out why I can’t connect from home. This is decidedly inconvenient for updating my blog, which I haven't been so good about lately anyway. So I've decided to change my host from blogspot to wordpress, which means that I won't be updating this site anymore. I think I was able to import all the old posts and comments without a hitch, but if anyone notices any problems with anything, please let me know.

Otherwise, I've taken advantage of the move to change the layout, which has always been pretty bare bones due to my limited skills in web design.

So please come over to the new site and update your bookmarks. Ahlan wa sahlan.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jeffrey Goldberg has a dishonest account of Tom Segev's review of a book on Haj Amin al-Husseini up. He makes it sound like Segev is only down on the book because it emphasizes Arab extremism, whereas his problems with the book are much more substantial:

The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him.

Then Goldberg makes it sound like Segev is comparing Jewish extremism in mandate Palestine with Husseini's support of Nazi Germany:

Segev compares the Mufti's behavior to that of Yitzhak Shamir, the former prime minister of Israel who was once a terrorist with the Stern Gang, and he criticizes the authors for neglecting to mention Jewish extremism in the time of the Mufti. I'm not sure why a book about pro-Nazi sympathies among certain Arabs need include this...

Actually, what Segev does is remind us, as we can read in his excellent book The Seventh Million that Husseini was not the only anti-British nationalist to make overtures to Nazi Germany for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of British imperialism:

The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode.

So while it's true that a book on Arabs seeking German support against the British and the Jewish colonialism needn't mention the terrorism of the Irgun or the Stern Gang, it seems dishonest not to include the fact that some of Husseini's local Jewish enemies also sought the support of Nazi Germany.

But that's the whole problem here. The importance accorded to Husseini is meant to conflate anti-Zionism and Arabs with anti-Semitism and Nazis. During World War II, there were many subjects of British imperialism from Ireland to Egypt and beyond who saw the time as ripe to back another European power, not because they were Nazis or anti-Semites, but because they were anti-British and saw Germany as means to the end of breaking British rule over their lands.

We've seen politically expedient but strange bedfellows time and time again, like how many exiled Iraqis supported an American invasion -- not because they were particularly pro-American, but rather because they were anti-Saddam. To argue that the the two are necessarily the same is either obtuse or dishonest.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Last night I saw a collection of Israeli and Palestinian short films about Jerusalem, one of which (made by an Israeli) took a look at the Museum on the Seam. The museum describes itself like this:

The Museum is committed to examining the social reality within our regional conflict, to advancing dialogue in the face of discord and to encouraging social responsibility that is based on what we all have in common rather than what keeps us apart.

And it describes its location like this:

The Museum is situated in a building constructed in 1932 by the Arab-Christian architect, Anton Baramki.

While Jerusalem was divided (1948-1967), the building served as a military outpost (the Turjeman Post) which stood on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city.

The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 with the generous support of the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation and by the initiative of the designer and curator of the Museum, Raphie Etgar.

What it fails to mention is that Baramki and his family lived in the house until they were displaced during the war in 1948 and that ever since 1967 the Baramki family has tried in vain to reclaim their house. The museum has refused to give them their property back, relying on the Israeli law of "absentee" landowners that has allowed the Jewish state to confiscate Palestinian land.

Friday, August 29, 2008

I've only scratched the surface, but considering how much Orwell talks about the weather and crops, I feel somehow a little less pathetic for not being able to talk for five minutes without making a comment on the hot and sticky weather that greeted me upon my return from Africa back to Beirut. Who'da thunk I'd be pining for Congolese weather? It's not much, but I suppose Goma's got at least one thing going for it this time of year.

For reasons I won't go into, I was at the American embassy a couple of times earlier this week. Draconian security measures notwithstanding (you're not allowed to bring a phone or bag onto the premises), the place seemed more Lebanese than American, with Lebanese security guards, Lebanese employees and Lebanese-Americans queued up in the consular section.

Another touch was a world map in the consular section. It is a map with political boundaries, and while I was in the consular waiting room, I took a look at it while trying to recover from the disgusting humidity that all of Beirut's been suffering from this summer. The map is in Arabic, and like most maps in the region, Israel is nowhere to be found. Instead, the map shows Palestine. This wouldn't be surprising, except that it's in the American embassy.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I've been really, really terrible about keeping the site updated. And for that I apologize. Before, I could blame the state of African telecommunications, but since I'm back home where I have the internet at home and work, I've got no such excuses.

While I was away, I read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow on the recommendation of a friend of mine. It was really wonderful, a mixture of Rushdie and Gunther Grass, but à l'africaine. Then, to keep with the theme of African dictatorships and as suggested by another friend, I read Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savanna, which is also a great read. There are so many passages that stood out on the page, but this is one of my favorites:

[A] genuine artist, no matter what he says he believes, must feel in his blood the ultimate enmity between art and orthodoxy.

Those who would see no blot of villainy in the beloved oppressed nor grant the faintest glimmer of humanity to the the hated oppressor are partisans, patriots and party-liners. In the grand finale of things there will be a mansion also for them where they will be received and lodged in comfort by the single-minded demigods of their devotion.

My trip was incredibly interesting. I traveled from Kenya to Zanzibar to Tanzania proper to Rwanda and Congo then through Uganda back to Kenya before leaving. It was tiresome to be on the move so much, so I was happy to come home to Beirut.

That being said, given our excruciatingly humid heat here, I miss the cool evenings of East and Central Africa. I also miss the smell of smoke that always seemed to fill the night sky. The latter, by the way, is completely different in the southern hemisphere. The stars are much more numerous and fill constellations that I'd never before seen. It's amazing to think that something so fundamental to our lives as the sky can change upon crossing an imaginary line in the African dirt.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was expecting a leisurely train ride through the inland to Lake Victoria from Dar-es-Salaam. That's not at all what I got. The train was scheduled to leave Dar-es-Salaam at 5 on Tuesday evening, and I was pleasantly surprised when we left on time. The Tanzanian scenery was beautiful and the couchette not that uncomfortable.

I awoke to a couple of sudden jolts, and then we stopped for a while. Finally, we started back up again and I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up was a Tanzanian cabin mate who decided that 1 am would be the perfect time to listen to his telephone's radio at full blast, despite the fact that there were five people trying to sleep in the same tiny cabin.

I finally fell back asleep and then woke up in the early light of the morning to see a train platform. We must be in Dodoma, I thought, and then went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to see that we hadn't moved, so I decided to get out and see what the problem was. I asked where we were, to which someone responded: Dar-es-Salaam. Thinking that he’d misunderstood my question, I mimed that yes, of course, we'd left Dar-es-Salaam, but where were we now? He shrugged and repeated: Dar-es-Salaam.

It was only then that I recognized the buildings around us. I'd just spent 14 hours to end up in the exact same place I'd left. After some investigation, it seems that the jolts had been two of the train cars being derailed, but fortunately no one was hurt. We were told that the tracks would be repaired and that we were expected to leave again at 5 in the evening, but that we should stay close to the train anyway, just in case. So I spent the day lounging in the sun watching as an African village sprung up on the train platform.

Men lounged and ate oranges, while women washed clothes and children. Wet laundry soon adorned the rusty tracks and open train windows. This, I assume, is how shantytowns are born. To my surprise, mothers led their children to defecate mere feet away from the water spigots, which left human shit in disconcerting proximity to drying laundry and dishes. It also made the whole place smell like a public toilet. All in all, I was surprised by the fact that no one seemed particularly upset about the inconvenience of the situation. Everyone was taking it in stride.

After being told that I couldn't get my money back for the train ticket, I left our new village for some fresh air and Indian food, passing an enormous line of people waiting to get a two-dollar food allowance from the rail company. By the time I got back, it was nearly time to leave. Or so I thought. The departure time of 5 pm came and went without so much as a train whistle. We were then told that we’d be leaving at 9, so I settled in to read with the last of the sunlight. I fell asleep in my couchette and only woke up at around 9:30 to loud music and a crowd of people obviously upset about something.

It seems that they were mad, and understandably so, about not getting a refund for their ticket. Every once in a while, the crowd's singing and chanting would take on a nasty edge, and rocks and Swahili curses would be hurled. After a bit of this and three pops that sounded like firecrackers and which were explained to me to be local bombs (made by the police or the crowd, I couldn't tell), I decided that it is decidedly unwise to be different in a crowd of angry people who want their money back. And especially unwise when that difference, in my case that of skin color, is seen mainly as a financial difference. I was worried that the leap from "give us our money back" to let's take the mzungu's money" could be quick and unforgiving. So I left. And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to Kigali by tomorrow.

I left Dar-es-Salaam last night and thought I was well on my way to Lake Victoria, but then I fell asleep and woke up this morning to find myself in.... Dar-es-Salaam. It seems that part of our train derailed last night (which must have been the couple of jolts I felt), so we turned around and came back. Shortly after arriving, the passengers set-up a makeshift village on tracks, with women washing clothes and children while the men mostly sat around chatting and eating oranges.

I looked into a plane ticket to Kigali from Dar, but it is an astounding $440, so it looks like I will be giving the train another try this evening. They said that the tracks are being repaired, but I don't know how much I trust that. In either case, by the time I'd figured out what was going on, it was too late to catch a bus to Mwanza, and I still haven't heard back from Rwandair, so it looks like I'll be on the train.

Otherwise, Mwanza was the film featured in the documentary film Darwin's Nightmare about the Perch Nile in Lake Victoria. It was poorly received here, and even non-Tanzanian friend who live here can't stand it. Personally, I really liked the film when I saw it, but I'd never been to Tanzania before, so if I finally make it to Mwanza, I suppose I'll be able to see if the film was fair or not.

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm not sure why, but overnight, my internet connection stopped allowing me to connect to blogspot/blogger sites. I can connect from friends' houses and from work, but I can't seem to figure out why I can’t connect from home. This is decidedly inconvenient for updating my blog, which I haven't been so good about lately anyway. So I've decided to change my host from blogspot to wordpress, which means that I won't be updating this site anymore. I think I was able to import all the old posts and comments without a hitch, but if anyone notices any problems with anything, please let me know.

Otherwise, I've taken advantage of the move to change the layout, which has always been pretty bare bones due to my limited skills in web design.

So please come over to the new site and update your bookmarks. Ahlan wa sahlan.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jeffrey Goldberg has a dishonest account of Tom Segev's review of a book on Haj Amin al-Husseini up. He makes it sound like Segev is only down on the book because it emphasizes Arab extremism, whereas his problems with the book are much more substantial:

The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him.

Then Goldberg makes it sound like Segev is comparing Jewish extremism in mandate Palestine with Husseini's support of Nazi Germany:

Segev compares the Mufti's behavior to that of Yitzhak Shamir, the former prime minister of Israel who was once a terrorist with the Stern Gang, and he criticizes the authors for neglecting to mention Jewish extremism in the time of the Mufti. I'm not sure why a book about pro-Nazi sympathies among certain Arabs need include this...

Actually, what Segev does is remind us, as we can read in his excellent book The Seventh Million that Husseini was not the only anti-British nationalist to make overtures to Nazi Germany for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of British imperialism:

The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode.

So while it's true that a book on Arabs seeking German support against the British and the Jewish colonialism needn't mention the terrorism of the Irgun or the Stern Gang, it seems dishonest not to include the fact that some of Husseini's local Jewish enemies also sought the support of Nazi Germany.

But that's the whole problem here. The importance accorded to Husseini is meant to conflate anti-Zionism and Arabs with anti-Semitism and Nazis. During World War II, there were many subjects of British imperialism from Ireland to Egypt and beyond who saw the time as ripe to back another European power, not because they were Nazis or anti-Semites, but because they were anti-British and saw Germany as means to the end of breaking British rule over their lands.

We've seen politically expedient but strange bedfellows time and time again, like how many exiled Iraqis supported an American invasion -- not because they were particularly pro-American, but rather because they were anti-Saddam. To argue that the the two are necessarily the same is either obtuse or dishonest.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Last night I saw a collection of Israeli and Palestinian short films about Jerusalem, one of which (made by an Israeli) took a look at the Museum on the Seam. The museum describes itself like this:

The Museum is committed to examining the social reality within our regional conflict, to advancing dialogue in the face of discord and to encouraging social responsibility that is based on what we all have in common rather than what keeps us apart.

And it describes its location like this:

The Museum is situated in a building constructed in 1932 by the Arab-Christian architect, Anton Baramki.

While Jerusalem was divided (1948-1967), the building served as a military outpost (the Turjeman Post) which stood on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city.

The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 with the generous support of the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation and by the initiative of the designer and curator of the Museum, Raphie Etgar.

What it fails to mention is that Baramki and his family lived in the house until they were displaced during the war in 1948 and that ever since 1967 the Baramki family has tried in vain to reclaim their house. The museum has refused to give them their property back, relying on the Israeli law of "absentee" landowners that has allowed the Jewish state to confiscate Palestinian land.

Friday, August 29, 2008

I've only scratched the surface, but considering how much Orwell talks about the weather and crops, I feel somehow a little less pathetic for not being able to talk for five minutes without making a comment on the hot and sticky weather that greeted me upon my return from Africa back to Beirut. Who'da thunk I'd be pining for Congolese weather? It's not much, but I suppose Goma's got at least one thing going for it this time of year.

For reasons I won't go into, I was at the American embassy a couple of times earlier this week. Draconian security measures notwithstanding (you're not allowed to bring a phone or bag onto the premises), the place seemed more Lebanese than American, with Lebanese security guards, Lebanese employees and Lebanese-Americans queued up in the consular section.

Another touch was a world map in the consular section. It is a map with political boundaries, and while I was in the consular waiting room, I took a look at it while trying to recover from the disgusting humidity that all of Beirut's been suffering from this summer. The map is in Arabic, and like most maps in the region, Israel is nowhere to be found. Instead, the map shows Palestine. This wouldn't be surprising, except that it's in the American embassy.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I've been really, really terrible about keeping the site updated. And for that I apologize. Before, I could blame the state of African telecommunications, but since I'm back home where I have the internet at home and work, I've got no such excuses.

While I was away, I read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow on the recommendation of a friend of mine. It was really wonderful, a mixture of Rushdie and Gunther Grass, but à l'africaine. Then, to keep with the theme of African dictatorships and as suggested by another friend, I read Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savanna, which is also a great read. There are so many passages that stood out on the page, but this is one of my favorites:

[A] genuine artist, no matter what he says he believes, must feel in his blood the ultimate enmity between art and orthodoxy.

Those who would see no blot of villainy in the beloved oppressed nor grant the faintest glimmer of humanity to the the hated oppressor are partisans, patriots and party-liners. In the grand finale of things there will be a mansion also for them where they will be received and lodged in comfort by the single-minded demigods of their devotion.

My trip was incredibly interesting. I traveled from Kenya to Zanzibar to Tanzania proper to Rwanda and Congo then through Uganda back to Kenya before leaving. It was tiresome to be on the move so much, so I was happy to come home to Beirut.

That being said, given our excruciatingly humid heat here, I miss the cool evenings of East and Central Africa. I also miss the smell of smoke that always seemed to fill the night sky. The latter, by the way, is completely different in the southern hemisphere. The stars are much more numerous and fill constellations that I'd never before seen. It's amazing to think that something so fundamental to our lives as the sky can change upon crossing an imaginary line in the African dirt.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was expecting a leisurely train ride through the inland to Lake Victoria from Dar-es-Salaam. That's not at all what I got. The train was scheduled to leave Dar-es-Salaam at 5 on Tuesday evening, and I was pleasantly surprised when we left on time. The Tanzanian scenery was beautiful and the couchette not that uncomfortable.

I awoke to a couple of sudden jolts, and then we stopped for a while. Finally, we started back up again and I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up was a Tanzanian cabin mate who decided that 1 am would be the perfect time to listen to his telephone's radio at full blast, despite the fact that there were five people trying to sleep in the same tiny cabin.

I finally fell back asleep and then woke up in the early light of the morning to see a train platform. We must be in Dodoma, I thought, and then went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to see that we hadn't moved, so I decided to get out and see what the problem was. I asked where we were, to which someone responded: Dar-es-Salaam. Thinking that he’d misunderstood my question, I mimed that yes, of course, we'd left Dar-es-Salaam, but where were we now? He shrugged and repeated: Dar-es-Salaam.

It was only then that I recognized the buildings around us. I'd just spent 14 hours to end up in the exact same place I'd left. After some investigation, it seems that the jolts had been two of the train cars being derailed, but fortunately no one was hurt. We were told that the tracks would be repaired and that we were expected to leave again at 5 in the evening, but that we should stay close to the train anyway, just in case. So I spent the day lounging in the sun watching as an African village sprung up on the train platform.

Men lounged and ate oranges, while women washed clothes and children. Wet laundry soon adorned the rusty tracks and open train windows. This, I assume, is how shantytowns are born. To my surprise, mothers led their children to defecate mere feet away from the water spigots, which left human shit in disconcerting proximity to drying laundry and dishes. It also made the whole place smell like a public toilet. All in all, I was surprised by the fact that no one seemed particularly upset about the inconvenience of the situation. Everyone was taking it in stride.

After being told that I couldn't get my money back for the train ticket, I left our new village for some fresh air and Indian food, passing an enormous line of people waiting to get a two-dollar food allowance from the rail company. By the time I got back, it was nearly time to leave. Or so I thought. The departure time of 5 pm came and went without so much as a train whistle. We were then told that we’d be leaving at 9, so I settled in to read with the last of the sunlight. I fell asleep in my couchette and only woke up at around 9:30 to loud music and a crowd of people obviously upset about something.

It seems that they were mad, and understandably so, about not getting a refund for their ticket. Every once in a while, the crowd's singing and chanting would take on a nasty edge, and rocks and Swahili curses would be hurled. After a bit of this and three pops that sounded like firecrackers and which were explained to me to be local bombs (made by the police or the crowd, I couldn't tell), I decided that it is decidedly unwise to be different in a crowd of angry people who want their money back. And especially unwise when that difference, in my case that of skin color, is seen mainly as a financial difference. I was worried that the leap from "give us our money back" to let's take the mzungu's money" could be quick and unforgiving. So I left. And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to Kigali by tomorrow.

I left Dar-es-Salaam last night and thought I was well on my way to Lake Victoria, but then I fell asleep and woke up this morning to find myself in.... Dar-es-Salaam. It seems that part of our train derailed last night (which must have been the couple of jolts I felt), so we turned around and came back. Shortly after arriving, the passengers set-up a makeshift village on tracks, with women washing clothes and children while the men mostly sat around chatting and eating oranges.

I looked into a plane ticket to Kigali from Dar, but it is an astounding $440, so it looks like I will be giving the train another try this evening. They said that the tracks are being repaired, but I don't know how much I trust that. In either case, by the time I'd figured out what was going on, it was too late to catch a bus to Mwanza, and I still haven't heard back from Rwandair, so it looks like I'll be on the train.

Otherwise, Mwanza was the film featured in the documentary film Darwin's Nightmare about the Perch Nile in Lake Victoria. It was poorly received here, and even non-Tanzanian friend who live here can't stand it. Personally, I really liked the film when I saw it, but I'd never been to Tanzania before, so if I finally make it to Mwanza, I suppose I'll be able to see if the film was fair or not.

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm not sure why, but overnight, my internet connection stopped allowing me to connect to blogspot/blogger sites. I can connect from friends' houses and from work, but I can't seem to figure out why I can’t connect from home. This is decidedly inconvenient for updating my blog, which I haven't been so good about lately anyway. So I've decided to change my host from blogspot to wordpress, which means that I won't be updating this site anymore. I think I was able to import all the old posts and comments without a hitch, but if anyone notices any problems with anything, please let me know.

Otherwise, I've taken advantage of the move to change the layout, which has always been pretty bare bones due to my limited skills in web design.

So please come over to the new site and update your bookmarks. Ahlan wa sahlan.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jeffrey Goldberg has a dishonest account of Tom Segev's review of a book on Haj Amin al-Husseini up. He makes it sound like Segev is only down on the book because it emphasizes Arab extremism, whereas his problems with the book are much more substantial:

The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him.

Then Goldberg makes it sound like Segev is comparing Jewish extremism in mandate Palestine with Husseini's support of Nazi Germany:

Segev compares the Mufti's behavior to that of Yitzhak Shamir, the former prime minister of Israel who was once a terrorist with the Stern Gang, and he criticizes the authors for neglecting to mention Jewish extremism in the time of the Mufti. I'm not sure why a book about pro-Nazi sympathies among certain Arabs need include this...

Actually, what Segev does is remind us, as we can read in his excellent book The Seventh Million that Husseini was not the only anti-British nationalist to make overtures to Nazi Germany for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of British imperialism:

The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode.

So while it's true that a book on Arabs seeking German support against the British and the Jewish colonialism needn't mention the terrorism of the Irgun or the Stern Gang, it seems dishonest not to include the fact that some of Husseini's local Jewish enemies also sought the support of Nazi Germany.

But that's the whole problem here. The importance accorded to Husseini is meant to conflate anti-Zionism and Arabs with anti-Semitism and Nazis. During World War II, there were many subjects of British imperialism from Ireland to Egypt and beyond who saw the time as ripe to back another European power, not because they were Nazis or anti-Semites, but because they were anti-British and saw Germany as means to the end of breaking British rule over their lands.

We've seen politically expedient but strange bedfellows time and time again, like how many exiled Iraqis supported an American invasion -- not because they were particularly pro-American, but rather because they were anti-Saddam. To argue that the the two are necessarily the same is either obtuse or dishonest.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Last night I saw a collection of Israeli and Palestinian short films about Jerusalem, one of which (made by an Israeli) took a look at the Museum on the Seam. The museum describes itself like this:

The Museum is committed to examining the social reality within our regional conflict, to advancing dialogue in the face of discord and to encouraging social responsibility that is based on what we all have in common rather than what keeps us apart.

And it describes its location like this:

The Museum is situated in a building constructed in 1932 by the Arab-Christian architect, Anton Baramki.

While Jerusalem was divided (1948-1967), the building served as a military outpost (the Turjeman Post) which stood on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city.

The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 with the generous support of the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation and by the initiative of the designer and curator of the Museum, Raphie Etgar.

What it fails to mention is that Baramki and his family lived in the house until they were displaced during the war in 1948 and that ever since 1967 the Baramki family has tried in vain to reclaim their house. The museum has refused to give them their property back, relying on the Israeli law of "absentee" landowners that has allowed the Jewish state to confiscate Palestinian land.

Friday, August 29, 2008

I've only scratched the surface, but considering how much Orwell talks about the weather and crops, I feel somehow a little less pathetic for not being able to talk for five minutes without making a comment on the hot and sticky weather that greeted me upon my return from Africa back to Beirut. Who'da thunk I'd be pining for Congolese weather? It's not much, but I suppose Goma's got at least one thing going for it this time of year.

For reasons I won't go into, I was at the American embassy a couple of times earlier this week. Draconian security measures notwithstanding (you're not allowed to bring a phone or bag onto the premises), the place seemed more Lebanese than American, with Lebanese security guards, Lebanese employees and Lebanese-Americans queued up in the consular section.

Another touch was a world map in the consular section. It is a map with political boundaries, and while I was in the consular waiting room, I took a look at it while trying to recover from the disgusting humidity that all of Beirut's been suffering from this summer. The map is in Arabic, and like most maps in the region, Israel is nowhere to be found. Instead, the map shows Palestine. This wouldn't be surprising, except that it's in the American embassy.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I've been really, really terrible about keeping the site updated. And for that I apologize. Before, I could blame the state of African telecommunications, but since I'm back home where I have the internet at home and work, I've got no such excuses.

While I was away, I read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow on the recommendation of a friend of mine. It was really wonderful, a mixture of Rushdie and Gunther Grass, but à l'africaine. Then, to keep with the theme of African dictatorships and as suggested by another friend, I read Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savanna, which is also a great read. There are so many passages that stood out on the page, but this is one of my favorites:

[A] genuine artist, no matter what he says he believes, must feel in his blood the ultimate enmity between art and orthodoxy.

Those who would see no blot of villainy in the beloved oppressed nor grant the faintest glimmer of humanity to the the hated oppressor are partisans, patriots and party-liners. In the grand finale of things there will be a mansion also for them where they will be received and lodged in comfort by the single-minded demigods of their devotion.

My trip was incredibly interesting. I traveled from Kenya to Zanzibar to Tanzania proper to Rwanda and Congo then through Uganda back to Kenya before leaving. It was tiresome to be on the move so much, so I was happy to come home to Beirut.

That being said, given our excruciatingly humid heat here, I miss the cool evenings of East and Central Africa. I also miss the smell of smoke that always seemed to fill the night sky. The latter, by the way, is completely different in the southern hemisphere. The stars are much more numerous and fill constellations that I'd never before seen. It's amazing to think that something so fundamental to our lives as the sky can change upon crossing an imaginary line in the African dirt.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was expecting a leisurely train ride through the inland to Lake Victoria from Dar-es-Salaam. That's not at all what I got. The train was scheduled to leave Dar-es-Salaam at 5 on Tuesday evening, and I was pleasantly surprised when we left on time. The Tanzanian scenery was beautiful and the couchette not that uncomfortable.

I awoke to a couple of sudden jolts, and then we stopped for a while. Finally, we started back up again and I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up was a Tanzanian cabin mate who decided that 1 am would be the perfect time to listen to his telephone's radio at full blast, despite the fact that there were five people trying to sleep in the same tiny cabin.

I finally fell back asleep and then woke up in the early light of the morning to see a train platform. We must be in Dodoma, I thought, and then went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to see that we hadn't moved, so I decided to get out and see what the problem was. I asked where we were, to which someone responded: Dar-es-Salaam. Thinking that he’d misunderstood my question, I mimed that yes, of course, we'd left Dar-es-Salaam, but where were we now? He shrugged and repeated: Dar-es-Salaam.

It was only then that I recognized the buildings around us. I'd just spent 14 hours to end up in the exact same place I'd left. After some investigation, it seems that the jolts had been two of the train cars being derailed, but fortunately no one was hurt. We were told that the tracks would be repaired and that we were expected to leave again at 5 in the evening, but that we should stay close to the train anyway, just in case. So I spent the day lounging in the sun watching as an African village sprung up on the train platform.

Men lounged and ate oranges, while women washed clothes and children. Wet laundry soon adorned the rusty tracks and open train windows. This, I assume, is how shantytowns are born. To my surprise, mothers led their children to defecate mere feet away from the water spigots, which left human shit in disconcerting proximity to drying laundry and dishes. It also made the whole place smell like a public toilet. All in all, I was surprised by the fact that no one seemed particularly upset about the inconvenience of the situation. Everyone was taking it in stride.

After being told that I couldn't get my money back for the train ticket, I left our new village for some fresh air and Indian food, passing an enormous line of people waiting to get a two-dollar food allowance from the rail company. By the time I got back, it was nearly time to leave. Or so I thought. The departure time of 5 pm came and went without so much as a train whistle. We were then told that we’d be leaving at 9, so I settled in to read with the last of the sunlight. I fell asleep in my couchette and only woke up at around 9:30 to loud music and a crowd of people obviously upset about something.

It seems that they were mad, and understandably so, about not getting a refund for their ticket. Every once in a while, the crowd's singing and chanting would take on a nasty edge, and rocks and Swahili curses would be hurled. After a bit of this and three pops that sounded like firecrackers and which were explained to me to be local bombs (made by the police or the crowd, I couldn't tell), I decided that it is decidedly unwise to be different in a crowd of angry people who want their money back. And especially unwise when that difference, in my case that of skin color, is seen mainly as a financial difference. I was worried that the leap from "give us our money back" to let's take the mzungu's money" could be quick and unforgiving. So I left. And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to Kigali by tomorrow.

I left Dar-es-Salaam last night and thought I was well on my way to Lake Victoria, but then I fell asleep and woke up this morning to find myself in.... Dar-es-Salaam. It seems that part of our train derailed last night (which must have been the couple of jolts I felt), so we turned around and came back. Shortly after arriving, the passengers set-up a makeshift village on tracks, with women washing clothes and children while the men mostly sat around chatting and eating oranges.

I looked into a plane ticket to Kigali from Dar, but it is an astounding $440, so it looks like I will be giving the train another try this evening. They said that the tracks are being repaired, but I don't know how much I trust that. In either case, by the time I'd figured out what was going on, it was too late to catch a bus to Mwanza, and I still haven't heard back from Rwandair, so it looks like I'll be on the train.

Otherwise, Mwanza was the film featured in the documentary film Darwin's Nightmare about the Perch Nile in Lake Victoria. It was poorly received here, and even non-Tanzanian friend who live here can't stand it. Personally, I really liked the film when I saw it, but I'd never been to Tanzania before, so if I finally make it to Mwanza, I suppose I'll be able to see if the film was fair or not.

Monday, October 06, 2008

I'm not sure why, but overnight, my internet connection stopped allowing me to connect to blogspot/blogger sites. I can connect from friends' houses and from work, but I can't seem to figure out why I can’t connect from home. This is decidedly inconvenient for updating my blog, which I haven't been so good about lately anyway. So I've decided to change my host from blogspot to wordpress, which means that I won't be updating this site anymore. I think I was able to import all the old posts and comments without a hitch, but if anyone notices any problems with anything, please let me know.

Otherwise, I've taken advantage of the move to change the layout, which has always been pretty bare bones due to my limited skills in web design.

So please come over to the new site and update your bookmarks. Ahlan wa sahlan.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jeffrey Goldberg has a dishonest account of Tom Segev's review of a book on Haj Amin al-Husseini up. He makes it sound like Segev is only down on the book because it emphasizes Arab extremism, whereas his problems with the book are much more substantial:

The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him.

Then Goldberg makes it sound like Segev is comparing Jewish extremism in mandate Palestine with Husseini's support of Nazi Germany:

Segev compares the Mufti's behavior to that of Yitzhak Shamir, the former prime minister of Israel who was once a terrorist with the Stern Gang, and he criticizes the authors for neglecting to mention Jewish extremism in the time of the Mufti. I'm not sure why a book about pro-Nazi sympathies among certain Arabs need include this...

Actually, what Segev does is remind us, as we can read in his excellent book The Seventh Million that Husseini was not the only anti-British nationalist to make overtures to Nazi Germany for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of British imperialism:

The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode.

So while it's true that a book on Arabs seeking German support against the British and the Jewish colonialism needn't mention the terrorism of the Irgun or the Stern Gang, it seems dishonest not to include the fact that some of Husseini's local Jewish enemies also sought the support of Nazi Germany.

But that's the whole problem here. The importance accorded to Husseini is meant to conflate anti-Zionism and Arabs with anti-Semitism and Nazis. During World War II, there were many subjects of British imperialism from Ireland to Egypt and beyond who saw the time as ripe to back another European power, not because they were Nazis or anti-Semites, but because they were anti-British and saw Germany as means to the end of breaking British rule over their lands.

We've seen politically expedient but strange bedfellows time and time again, like how many exiled Iraqis supported an American invasion -- not because they were particularly pro-American, but rather because they were anti-Saddam. To argue that the the two are necessarily the same is either obtuse or dishonest.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Last night I saw a collection of Israeli and Palestinian short films about Jerusalem, one of which (made by an Israeli) took a look at the Museum on the Seam. The museum describes itself like this:

The Museum is committed to examining the social reality within our regional conflict, to advancing dialogue in the face of discord and to encouraging social responsibility that is based on what we all have in common rather than what keeps us apart.

And it describes its location like this:

The Museum is situated in a building constructed in 1932 by the Arab-Christian architect, Anton Baramki.

While Jerusalem was divided (1948-1967), the building served as a military outpost (the Turjeman Post) which stood on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city.

The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 with the generous support of the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation and by the initiative of the designer and curator of the Museum, Raphie Etgar.

What it fails to mention is that Baramki and his family lived in the house until they were displaced during the war in 1948 and that ever since 1967 the Baramki family has tried in vain to reclaim their house. The museum has refused to give them their property back, relying on the Israeli law of "absentee" landowners that has allowed the Jewish state to confiscate Palestinian land.

Friday, August 29, 2008

I've only scratched the surface, but considering how much Orwell talks about the weather and crops, I feel somehow a little less pathetic for not being able to talk for five minutes without making a comment on the hot and sticky weather that greeted me upon my return from Africa back to Beirut. Who'da thunk I'd be pining for Congolese weather? It's not much, but I suppose Goma's got at least one thing going for it this time of year.

For reasons I won't go into, I was at the American embassy a couple of times earlier this week. Draconian security measures notwithstanding (you're not allowed to bring a phone or bag onto the premises), the place seemed more Lebanese than American, with Lebanese security guards, Lebanese employees and Lebanese-Americans queued up in the consular section.

Another touch was a world map in the consular section. It is a map with political boundaries, and while I was in the consular waiting room, I took a look at it while trying to recover from the disgusting humidity that all of Beirut's been suffering from this summer. The map is in Arabic, and like most maps in the region, Israel is nowhere to be found. Instead, the map shows Palestine. This wouldn't be surprising, except that it's in the American embassy.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I've been really, really terrible about keeping the site updated. And for that I apologize. Before, I could blame the state of African telecommunications, but since I'm back home where I have the internet at home and work, I've got no such excuses.

While I was away, I read Ngugi wa Thiongo's Wizard of the Crow on the recommendation of a friend of mine. It was really wonderful, a mixture of Rushdie and Gunther Grass, but à l'africaine. Then, to keep with the theme of African dictatorships and as suggested by another friend, I read Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savanna, which is also a great read. There are so many passages that stood out on the page, but this is one of my favorites:

[A] genuine artist, no matter what he says he believes, must feel in his blood the ultimate enmity between art and orthodoxy.

Those who would see no blot of villainy in the beloved oppressed nor grant the faintest glimmer of humanity to the the hated oppressor are partisans, patriots and party-liners. In the grand finale of things there will be a mansion also for them where they will be received and lodged in comfort by the single-minded demigods of their devotion.

My trip was incredibly interesting. I traveled from Kenya to Zanzibar to Tanzania proper to Rwanda and Congo then through Uganda back to Kenya before leaving. It was tiresome to be on the move so much, so I was happy to come home to Beirut.

That being said, given our excruciatingly humid heat here, I miss the cool evenings of East and Central Africa. I also miss the smell of smoke that always seemed to fill the night sky. The latter, by the way, is completely different in the southern hemisphere. The stars are much more numerous and fill constellations that I'd never before seen. It's amazing to think that something so fundamental to our lives as the sky can change upon crossing an imaginary line in the African dirt.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

I was expecting a leisurely train ride through the inland to Lake Victoria from Dar-es-Salaam. That's not at all what I got. The train was scheduled to leave Dar-es-Salaam at 5 on Tuesday evening, and I was pleasantly surprised when we left on time. The Tanzanian scenery was beautiful and the couchette not that uncomfortable.

I awoke to a couple of sudden jolts, and then we stopped for a while. Finally, we started back up again and I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up was a Tanzanian cabin mate who decided that 1 am would be the perfect time to listen to his telephone's radio at full blast, despite the fact that there were five people trying to sleep in the same tiny cabin.

I finally fell back asleep and then woke up in the early light of the morning to see a train platform. We must be in Dodoma, I thought, and then went back to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to see that we hadn't moved, so I decided to get out and see what the problem was. I asked where we were, to which someone responded: Dar-es-Salaam. Thinking that he’d misunderstood my question, I mimed that yes, of course, we'd left Dar-es-Salaam, but where were we now? He shrugged and repeated: Dar-es-Salaam.

It was only then that I recognized the buildings around us. I'd just spent 14 hours to end up in the exact same place I'd left. After some investigation, it seems that the jolts had been two of the train cars being derailed, but fortunately no one was hurt. We were told that the tracks would be repaired and that we were expected to leave again at 5 in the evening, but that we should stay close to the train anyway, just in case. So I spent the day lounging in the sun watching as an African village sprung up on the train platform.

Men lounged and ate oranges, while women washed clothes and children. Wet laundry soon adorned the rusty tracks and open train windows. This, I assume, is how shantytowns are born. To my surprise, mothers led their children to defecate mere feet away from the water spigots, which left human shit in disconcerting proximity to drying laundry and dishes. It also made the whole place smell like a public toilet. All in all, I was surprised by the fact that no one seemed particularly upset about the inconvenience of the situation. Everyone was taking it in stride.

After being told that I couldn't get my money back for the train ticket, I left our new village for some fresh air and Indian food, passing an enormous line of people waiting to get a two-dollar food allowance from the rail company. By the time I got back, it was nearly time to leave. Or so I thought. The departure time of 5 pm came and went without so much as a train whistle. We were then told that we’d be leaving at 9, so I settled in to read with the last of the sunlight. I fell asleep in my couchette and only woke up at around 9:30 to loud music and a crowd of people obviously upset about something.

It seems that they were mad, and understandably so, about not getting a refund for their ticket. Every once in a while, the crowd's singing and chanting would take on a nasty edge, and rocks and Swahili curses would be hurled. After a bit of this and three pops that sounded like firecrackers and which were explained to me to be local bombs (made by the police or the crowd, I couldn't tell), I decided that it is decidedly unwise to be different in a crowd of angry people who want their money back. And especially unwise when that difference, in my case that of skin color, is seen mainly as a financial difference. I was worried that the leap from "give us our money back" to let's take the mzungu's money" could be quick and unforgiving. So I left. And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to make it to Kigali by tomorrow.

I left Dar-es-Salaam last night and thought I was well on my way to Lake Victoria, but then I fell asleep and woke up this morning to find myself in.... Dar-es-Salaam. It seems that part of our train derailed last night (which must have been the couple of jolts I felt), so we turned around and came back. Shortly after arriving, the passengers set-up a makeshift village on tracks, with women washing clothes and children while the men mostly sat around chatting and eating oranges.

I looked into a plane ticket to Kigali from Dar, but it is an astounding $440, so it looks like I will be giving the train another try this evening. They said that the tracks are being repaired, but I don't know how much I trust that. In either case, by the time I'd figured out what was going on, it was too late to catch a bus to Mwanza, and I still haven't heard back from Rwandair, so it looks like I'll be on the train.

Otherwise, Mwanza was the film featured in the documentary film Darwin's Nightmare about the Perch Nile in Lake Victoria. It was poorly received here, and even non-Tanzanian friend who live here can't stand it. Personally, I really liked the film when I saw it, but I'd never been to Tanzania before, so if I finally make it to Mwanza, I suppose I'll be able to see if the film was fair or not.